Blue Blood: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

The woman behind the desk wore a headset over the pale blond of her hair, and I listened to her put half a dozen callers on hold before she looked up with a white-toothed smile, asking, “May I help you, ma’am?” Something about being called “ma’am” always needled me. Made me feel as if they were talking to my mother. I nearly glanced over my shoulder, expecting to find Cissy standing there.

  “I’d like to see Brian Malone, please.”

  “Name?”

  “Andrea Kendricks.”

  She scrunched up her tiny nose and peered at the computer screen, her fingers tapping on the keyboard, and then she glanced at me again, this time without the toothpaste-perfect smile. “You’re not listed on his schedule, ma’am. Perhaps I can make you an appointment for next week?”

  “It’s important that I . . .”

  “One moment, please,” she interrupted and raised a pink-tipped finger as the telephone buzzed for her attention. “Abramawitz, Reynolds, Goldberg, and Hunt, one moment, please,” she rattled off in staccato quick succession. She put the line on hold and looked up again. “If you want to see one of our attorneys, you’ll need an appointment, ma’am.”

  “Andy?”

  Turning at the sound of his voice, I sighed with relief at the sight of Malone standing in the mouth of the hallway, a cup of coffee in his hand. “I was just taking a break, and I thought I saw you out there.”

  “Yep, it’s me all right.” I gave the receptionist a little smirk as I left the front desk and walked toward him. “You have a few minutes?” I asked.

  “I can spare about ten. I’m proofing a brief for one of the senior partners before a meeting with a client.”

  “Thanks.”

  I followed him out of the mauve lobby and through a maze of hallways with wood panels and wildlife prints that reminded me of a series my dentist had on the wall across from the spit sink.

  I peered into the offices we passed, noting shelves floor-to-ceiling with books, patterned area rugs, and big dark desks behind which sat a succession of mostly white male occupants.

  So much for diversity.

  “Here we are,” Malone said, stopping outside a door at the end of the maze. His nearest neighbor, I noted, was an enormous copy machine currently spewing out collated papers at about a page per second.

  He ushered me inside and gestured at a barrel-backed chair opposite his paper-cluttered desk. I had a feeling the firm’s interior decorator had bypassed his office entirely. Or maybe that was an incentive for making partner.

  There were no windows, but the room was well lit, and someone had deposited a large closet plant in the corner so there was living green amidst the grim palette of deep blues and browns. Brown shelves, brown floor, faded blue dhurrie, brown chairs, brown desk, navy drapes. I glanced at Malone and wondered if he’d color-coordinated his attire of brown suit and blue striped tie.

  He set his Styrofoam cup down atop a stack of manila folders and leaned back in his big chair, setting his hands in his lap. “Now, what can I do for you?”

  Though I realized he had to be about my age, he appeared so boyish with his tousled hair and clean-shaven jaw. His eyes were clear and wide behind his glasses. A part of me wished he were older and grayer, but he had an earnestness about him that I found appealing.

  “This isn’t a social call, is it?”

  I held my purse on my knees and fiddled with the strap. “I just came from the county jail,” I confessed, and he didn’t seem surprised. “I can’t believe they’ve got her locked up already. I mean, I know the wheels of justice are swift, but this is ridiculous.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can.”

  “Well, go faster, Malone. We can’t let this thing go to trial or the prosecution’s going to railroad her. I can see it happening as we speak.”

  His chair squeaked as he bent forward over his desk. “Listen to me, Andy. Nobody ever knows how a jury’s going to react to a case before it’s presented. Not even the consultants who help pick them.”

  “But it looks bad, even you said so.”

  He shrugged, and his long fingers encircled his coffee cup. “It’ll depend on who they believe. Molly or the cops.”

  “Great,” I groused, knowing who always came out on top in Texas. The cops were the good guys here, not like in L.A. where they so often seemed to wear the black hats. “Have you seen a copy of the final police report yet? How about the autopsy findings?”

  “Preliminaries only,” he said and fished through some of the papers on his desk. He apparently found what he was looking for. “What do you want to know?”

  So many questions came to mind that I wasn’t sure which to ask first. “How about the time of death?”

  Malone skimmed the pages. “Estimated TOD is somewhere between midnight and three a.m. Rigor mortis had just started setting in, and the body temp had cooled by a couple of degrees.”

  I felt a flash of hope. “So Bud Hartman could have been alive when Molly left like she told us. He could have been killed an hour later . . . maybe even two.”

  “But the security guard saw her fleeing the scene just before one a.m. Guy’s name is Fred Hicks. He’s been working for Lone Star Security for almost a year. They have a contract with the Villa Mesa Plaza. In his statement, he said that he wrote down Molly’s plate number on instinct, but everything else seemed quiet so he went about his regular duties and finished his rounds. He was distracted for a while by a problem at the Zuma Beach Club, across the parking lot from Jugs.”

  “Zuma Beach?” I repeated, easily imagining what the distraction might have been. The bar was popular with the college crowd. Some girls I knew from Hockaday who’d attended SMU or Texas Christian used to hang out there regularly on Saturday nights long after graduation. They’d called it the “meat market” back then, and I didn’t figure things had changed much over time. “Did some drunken frat boys cause a scene?”

  Malone nodded. “Bingo. Hickman had to break up a fight between a couple kids who were blotto, then he called them both cabs. It was nearly three when he went back to Jugs and saw Hartman’s car still there. Apparently, that happened occasionally, but he did get curious enough to go over and that’s when he found the rear door unlocked. When he went inside, Hartman was lying face down on the floor with an eight-inch chef’s knife protruding from his back.”

  I wasn’t about to give up. “That leaves almost two whole hours for someone else to have stabbed him. The killer could’ve come and gone while Hicks was taking care of those yahoos at Zuma.” I caught my second wind. “My God, Malone, anyone could’ve gotten into Jugs if the back door was open and no alarm was set. From what I’ve heard so far, Hartman was a real ass. He probably had enemies up the wazoo. Maybe a jealous boyfriend or husband came after him and took the opportunity to teach him a lesson he’d never forget.”

  Malone patiently waited until I’d finished, then told me, “The cooks who worked the last shift at Jugs that night said they’d sanitized all the cooking utensils before going home. Molly’s prints were the only ones on the handle of the murder weapon.”

  “The killer could’ve worn gloves.”

  Malone sighed.

  “Maybe this was premeditated,” I suggested, hating that he was so ready to give up because a shopping center security guard and a few fingerprints pointed in Molly’s direction. Besides, everyone knew how unreliable eyewitnesses were. All you had to do was watch a rerun of Law & Order.

  I pointed this out to him, adding, “Someone could have hidden in a closet, waiting for everyone to leave. Only Hartman went after Molly, and she picked up the knife to scare him off.”

  Malone’s brows arched.

  “Okay, so she nicked him a little, but she didn’t do the deed. What she did was leave enough evidence to make the cops believe she’s guilty. Now she’s accused, and the real murderer is walking around, scot-free.”

  My heart pounded in my chest, and I realized I’d come halfway out of my seat. My purse had fallen to the floor, and I scooped it
up and settled back into my chair, primly crossing my ankles.

  Malone watched me, his head tilted to the right, his eyes narrowed, and I felt warm despite the air conditioning.

  “You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” I dared to ask, though I could guess his response by the disbelief on his face.

  He smoothed a hand down his tie and cleared his throat. “No, Andy, of course I don’t think you’re nuts.”

  “No?”

  “I just think you’re tilting at windmills. Your mother said you’ve always been a sucker for lost causes.”

  “Is that so?”

  “And that you had an overactive imagination.”

  “I see,” I said through gritted teeth and flushed from ear to ear. I wondered what else Cissy had told him behind my back. Did he hear about the time I was suspended from school for a day because I’d refused to dissect a frog in biology? Did he know the size of my shoes or the score on my SATs?

  Focus, Andy, I reminded myself, because anything my mother did could too easily distract me.

  We’d been debating whether or not someone could have been hiding in Jugs when Bud attacked Molly.

  I reconsidered the scenario I’d described, and there didn’t seem to be anything “overly imaginative” about it. It was perfectly plausible to me. So I challenged him, “Will you at least admit it’s not impossible?”

  “Nothing’s impossible this early on. Not from where I stand.”

  Well, that was progress, wasn’t it?

  “Tell me what else the preliminary autopsy report has to say about the body,” I asked, changing the subject entirely. I could tell I was going to have to convince Malone a spoonful at a time. Maybe he’d been born in Missouri, the “Show Me” state, because he obviously liked to rely on “just the facts.”

  Some people, huh?

  “I’ll give you what I can, okay?” He glanced at the papers on his desk. “There was a superficial laceration on Hartman’s face . . .”

  “You see!” I jumped in. “That must’ve been where Molly caught him with the knife when he had her pinned against the counter in the kitchen.” I smiled smugly. “She told us the truth.”

  He nudged at his glasses. “I’d like to believe that.”

  “It accounts for the blood on her shirt and shoes.”

  He pressed his fingertips together in a steeple, probably waiting for me to stop interrupting.

  “What does it say about the money bag?” I prodded.

  Malone again rifled through the papers, though this time it took him longer. “The only place it’s even mentioned is in Molly’s statement. She claims she put the cash and the credit card receipts from the register into the bank bag and placed it on Hartman’s desk. But no such bag was found by the police.” He shifted in his seat. “Look, Andy, the D.A.’s office got a copy of her credit report, and Molly’s in debt up to her eyeballs. They’re going to contend she stole the cash herself, maybe even killed for it.”

  I scooted to the edge of my chair. “Then why would she even bring it up?”

  “Because they would’ve found out it was missing sooner or later.”

  “So where is it?” I asked point-blank. “Did they find it when they searched her place? Was it in her car?”

  “No.”

  “Aha!”

  But my moment of glee was short-lived.

  “They’ll say she hid it somewhere, planning to go back for it later.”

  I sniffed. “Give me a break.”

  “It gives her a motive, Andy.”

  Why did it seem like he was fighting me instead of taking up the battle cry of Molly’s innocence?

  “Look, Malone, she said there was at least four or five thousand in cash, though she didn’t do an official tally. She told me Bud always made up the deposit slips, never the wait staff. Maybe he did that for a very good reason. Like he was being a little creative with his bookkeeping.”

  Malone scratched behind his ear. “You’re the one who’s getting a little creative here. Let’s stick to the facts for now, please.”

  Facts schmacts.

  I pressed my lips together, saying nothing, but my mind was making such a racket I was surprised he couldn’t hear it. If Molly didn’t take that bank bag from Bud’s desk when she ran off just before one o’clock, clearly someone else had been there.

  Whoever it was, I’d figure it out.

  I left Malone’s office and headed to the only place with any answers.

  Chapter 9

  The sun was sinking fast below the flat horizon as I drove north on the tollway and exited at Preston Road.

  I pulled off at the sight of the Golden Arches, detouring at McDonald’s just long enough to drive through and order a Filet-O-Fish and fries. I’d missed lunch, what with going down to Lew Sterrett to see Molly and stopping by ARGH, and my stomach had started a vicious rumbling that didn’t stop until I washed down the last fry with a chug of cold soda.

  Across the street, most of the vans from the local TV stations still camped in the parking lot at Jugs.

  This was big news, I realized. Juicy scandal. The owner of a restaurant famous for its half-naked waitresses had been stabbed to death. One of those half-naked waitresses had been arrested and charged with the crime. The story would likely knock the latest Dallas Cowboys’ escapades off the front page of the Morning News, at least for a couple days.

  There was no need to think WWND (What Would Nancy Do—as in Drew), because I had that all mapped out. Like a rubbernecker drawn to a highway accident, I was magnetically pulled across the street.

  I drove over and slid the Jeep into an empty space at the Zuma Beach Club since it wouldn’t open for hours yet.

  Yellow crime-scene tape fluttered across the front doors of the restaurant. The enormous pair of jugs on the billboard high above seemed to stare as I approached.

  Now I understood why the anti-Jugs protestors had once painted a giant pink bra over them. They were rather disconcerting.

  I wondered how Molly had felt about coming here night after night, having to work for a guy like Bud Hartman who, from what I’d heard, seemed to think his waitresses were his personal possessions. Did the men who frequented the place have the same macho outlook? Had they treated her with more respect than Bud, or had Molly been responsible for fending off their advances as well with little more than a smile as her defense?

  I felt steamed just thinking about it.

  A blue-and-white Dallas patrol car was parked near the restaurant’s front entrance, and I noticed one of the uniformed officers stationed outside the door. He kept turning back the reporters who approached him with microphones and minicams at the ready. Apparently “no” wasn’t a word they’d learned at J-School.

  The cop had his arms crossed over a beefy chest. His black mustache only emphasized his scowl, which deepened with my approach.

  “Sorry, lady, but no one gets inside till tomorrow morning,” he said before I’d even opened my mouth. “As of now, this is a secured area.”

  “No problem, Officer,” I replied, thanking him for the information, which is all I’d really wanted.

  So Jugs would reopen tomorrow. By then, they’d have Bud’s blood cleaned off the floor, all the mess left behind by the crime lab technicians scrubbed away, and everything in perfect order again as if nothing had ever happened.

  That suited me fine. I wasn’t a big fan of blood. It was reassuring to realize the place would be tidied up when I returned to apply for Molly’s position.

  I skirted the camera crews and vans scattered around the four corners of Jugs like swarms of buzzing insects. But they apparently weren’t the only ones attracted to the murder scene.

  A minicam’s bright light overexposed a reporter with mike in hand, interviewing a contingent of picketers lifting signs that read: MAP—MOTHERS AGAINST PORNOGRAPHY and STOP DEGRADING WOMEN! I got close enough to hear a youthful woman with a baby in a sling between her breasts shout that “Bud reaped what he sowed!”

  Lov
ely sentiment.

  Which got me thinking more about what Molly had said, about Bud’s hitting on the waitresses and pressuring them for sexual favors. I had asked her why no one had called the EEOC or some other agency that purported to protect workers against harassment, and Molly had simply shrugged. “The money’s too good, Andy. I can get three hundred each night in tips, easy. The only way I could do better would be if I took my clothes off and let a bunch of drooling dogs stuff bills into my G-string.”

  I didn’t think putting up with an abusive boss was worth any amount of money, but then I’d never had to worry about how I was going to pay my bills or put food on the table. There was a lot I couldn’t comprehend about the world Molly lived in, no matter how much I sympathized.

  “It wasn’t an awful place to work. The customers were pretty decent. Just a few bad apples now and then, but no more than if I’d been working at IHOP. Putting up with guys like Bud was part of the job, and I could do it if I had to,” she’d explained. “For David’s sake as well as mine.”

  It wasn’t fair, I decided. But then life wasn’t about justice. Some people seemed to get all the breaks and others just got broken.

  I went around to the back door and spotted another blue uniform keeping people away.

  A blonde accessorized with microphone and cameraman seemed determined to get the officer to utter more than a “No comment.”

  “Is it true that Bud Hartman was illegally watering down the drinks he served his customers?”

  The cop squinted into the minicam’s light and said gruffly, “I’m trying to do my job, ma’am, so if you’d kindly step away.”

  “I heard he may have sexually preyed upon his female employees,” the blonde tried again.

  “Could you step back, please?”

  “Was he a date rapist?”

  The officer turned beet red. “Are you hard of hearing?”

  “Was he killed in self-defense by that waitress?”

  This time, our friend in blue pointed a finger in the nose of the reporter. “Unless you want to be the victim of self-defense, you’ve got two seconds to get that microphone out of my face.”